Circle of Excellence: 10 Companies That Model the Way
Follow Me: If You Want Other to Share Your Vision, The CEO Must Take the Lead
David S. Cordish sees much wisdom in the U.S. Infantry motto, “Follow me.” To the chairman of The Cordish Companies, the slogan embodies his role as a leader. “If you want to take the hill, the general should lead the charge, not be sitting in a pup tent 100 miles away,” Cordish explains.
It’s a sentiment he embraced during last year’s highly publicized battle against the Maryland Jockey Club (majority owned by Cordish Companies competitor Penn National Gaming, Inc.) to persuade the voters of Anne Arundel County to support his $1 billion casino and entertainment complex, Maryland Live! Casino at Arundel Mills – a battle Cordish ultimately won by convincing his troops to follow.
Cordish had expected a fight. Penn National’s casino in Charlestown, WV, stood to lose lucrative Maryland customers when Cordish’s casino opened closer to home. “The fact that, with those stakes involved, Penn would do everything they could to delay us did not surprise us. That’s just business,” Cordish says. “What was disappointing, upsetting – may the word ‘surprising’ is applicable – is that the tactics they used would not be tactics I would have used or that I think most businesses would.”
Those tactics included spending millions on what Cordish calls “misleading” advertising, insinuating the casino would be located in the mall where children were present, as opposed to across the street in a restricted building. “How do you combat someone who is spending millions on misleading advertising? You could either try to outspend them or do what we did, which was to mount a ground game,” says Cordish.
Cordish, himself, led the charge, rounding up his wife and children and taking his story door to door to Anne Arundel County voters, explaining over coffees and in doorways that the TV ads they’d seen were misleading, that the casino would create 4,000 new jobs and that the state of Maryland was losing $1.2 million each day the casino was delayed. Cordish delivered talks before business and civic groups, rallying a coalition of 356 businesses, 17 Chambers of Commerce and the police, fire and school-teachers unions to his cause. “To tell you the truth, it turned out to be one of the great experiences of my life,” Cordish says. “If you want to motivate the policemen and firemen and teachers and businesses, you have to show that you are willing to lead.”
In November, Anne Arundel County voters approved the zoning bill that allowed The Cordish Companies to proceed with its development. Construction is currently underway, and the casino complex – which will become the third-largest casino in the United States – is slated to open for business by June 2012.
By leading the way, Cordish was able to convince the community to share his vision. But the “ground game” is applicable to more than just politics. “It’s applicable to everything you do in business,” Cordish says. “If you are going to sit behind your desk and communicate with your customers by email, you are not going to win. You have to go see people face to face; you have to put in the hours. There is no shortcut, no brilliance or inspiration that is going to bail you out. It’s attention to detail. It’s getting on the ground. It’s rolling up your sleeves and working harder than the other guy. In all business leadership, or philanthropic or military leadership, you have to say ‘Follow me.’”